Crysis: Legion (3 page)

I’m back in the water and those lights in the sky, those glowing eyes are sweeping off across the water in search of other targets. Someone’s yelling off to my left and it’s
Leavenworth
, man, you just can’t keep him down, we’ve obviously found us a niche where being a paranoid conspiracy freak actually pays off. And Leavenworth is waving and gesturing, something’s blown a hole in the seawall just a few meters along and he’s already diving into that breach and I’m right there behind him. We crawl through a little canyon of smashed concrete and tangled rebar that tries to gut you like a fish every time you move. There’s this stink in the air, not just the oil and the bodies and the shit in the harbor,
something else, something—acrid. That’s the word. Like ammonia.

We come out in the middle of something that used to be a road, hunker down under a slab of upended asphalt like kids camping in a lean-to. But the Eyes in the Sky are swinging around for another pass, and they’ve got a clear shot at us from their current angle of approach. Leavenworth breaks cover and starts running for the only other piece of cover in sight, old wreck of a building past fifty meters of parking lot. I’m right behind him, got my eyes on the ground but it doesn’t help, I still see Leavenworth blow apart like a water balloon right in front of me. The ballistics are a fucking
hailstorm
now and we’ve just been massacred and suddenly there’s this stupid giddy voice in my head that won’t shut up, keeps saying
Well at least Leavenworth died happy—vindicated at last, blown up by space aliens …
and—

—And then there’s this, this kind of a
thump
, a
tugging
sensation, and I’m not running anywhere anymore. I can’t feel my legs. I’m facedown in gravel and there’s blood everywhere, it’s got to be mine because I can
feel
myself bleeding out, but—

But it doesn’t hurt. I don’t know if it’s shock or a severed spinal cord or if the pain just hasn’t crawled upstream yet but that’s it, man, I’m dying, I
know
I’m dying. And it doesn’t hurt at all.

I can still move my arms, though. And someone’s still screaming somewhere so I’m not completely alone, not yet, not yet. I heave over onto my back—vision’s shaky now, eyes swarming with floaters and there’s a red mist over everything, but if this is
it
then I want to at least go out looking my enemy in the eye, you know? And there it is, big as death, Armageddon in an airfoil and I still can’t see anything but a black shape behind blinding light but in my mind’s eye it’s got a hundred muzzles twitching and tracking, locking on, the fucker’s looking right at me and in the next instant a sonic boom goes off in my head.

And the Eyes
stagger
in midair, like something just kicked them in the face.

For a second I think
That’s the weirdest recoil I’ve ever seen
, but then I realize it’s the
gunship
that’s been hit. And whatever that ship uses for a pilot has just realized the same thing, it’s forgotten all about me and it’s spinning in midair, looking for whatever arrogant motherfucker had the audacity to fight back.

And there it is, pinned in the spotlight like a rock star.

It’s some kind of battlefield robot. It’s a cyclops with no face, no
room
for a face because that big bloody eye wraps halfway around its head. It’s like someone flayed one of those big Greek statues down to the muscles—because that’s all you can see, man, these bunched cords of muscle, gunmetal gray, almost oily in the searchlight, wrapped around a gleaming skeleton that pokes through here and there. You can see a spine. Something like a skull. There are knuckles and elbows and kneecaps and they gleam like chrome but you just know they have to be a thousand times stronger.

I swear in that moment it’s ten meters tall. It comes striding across the wreckage like a great fucking golem, holding a cannon in one hand like it weighs a hundred grams, like it weighs nothing at all. The muscles flex and slide across one another with every step; they seem almost organic, but I’ve never seen anything live move quite like that.

It looks like it can take down that ship with a single shot.

It doesn’t, though. The gunship gets its licks in, fires back, hits the golem dead in the chest and not a word of a lie I swear that fucker
stays standing
. He staggers, rocks back on his heels, almost goes over. But he doesn’t. He keeps his footing, and he brings up that cannon again—I can see now it’s some kind of tricked-out miligun, way too big for mere mortals. He must’ve swiped it off a Taranis or something but he’s throwing it around like it’s a
paperweight and the sound it makes, that beautiful sound, gotta be three thousand rounds a minute and the ammo belt’s flapping and slithering through that gun like .30-caliber tickertape.

I’m laughing like the Joker, I’m cheering him on so hard I almost forget I’m dying. He’s my guardian angel, he’s Gabriel blowing his horn against the heavens and that hellship is dipping and weaving and looking for an opening but it’s on fire now, it’s shitting smoke and listing to starboard and it can’t even seem to get a target lock anymore, all that devastating firepower just spraying in these wild arcs through the whole 360, hitting nothing but sea and sky.

Doesn’t blow up a moment too soon, though, because two seconds after it goes down my savior’s cannon is spinning on empty.

I’m kind of laughed out by now. Actually, I’m having a hard time even breathing. Blood pools at the back of my throat. I can barely cough it back up. But Gabriel hears me, even over the roaring of the flames. He sees me, and he comes to me through the smoke and the wreckage with that miligun still spinning in his hand, nothing to chew on anymore but sheer inertia. He seems to notice that after a second, throws the gun away without a second glance, kneels down at my side and stares at me.

I stare back. Dark coppery visor, shiny and opaque; stubby metal snout underneath, some kind of integrated gasmask-respirator thingy. More of that corded gray muscle-armor across the cheeks, held anchored by metal strips running along the edge of the jaw; they meet up like mandibles where the mouth should be.

It’s like being face-to-face with a praying mantis.

He doesn’t say a damn thing for the longest time.
I
try to
—thank you
, or
nice shooting
, or even
what the fuck
—but those parts don’t seem to work anymore. Finally I hear an electrical hum and a voice comes out.

“Let me guess. You’re my ride out of here.”

Golem. Angel. Cyclops. Robot. Still not sure
what
he is. It’s surreal. I think maybe I’m hallucinating. I think I’m having a near-death experience.

Looking back, that’s exactly what it was.

He saves me. I don’t know how long it takes. I’m not there for most of it.

I remember movement; I remember being lifted up to Heaven, slung over my hero’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I remember the feel of great bundled cables ratcheting back and forth, biting into my gut. I remember it
hurting
, at long last. I’m in agony now, I’m flayed nerves and broken bones and guts fed through a wood chipper. I faint from the pain, and the pain shocks me back awake, and then I faint again.

But I’m almost relieved, you know? Almost happy. I’m not dead yet, not yet. I’m still in the world. I can still
hurt
.

Still can’t scream, though. Can’t make a sound.

I hear
him
talking. Through the helmet. A voice, filtered through some kind of vocoder; there’s an electronic buzz to it, a machine quality, but it sounds like there’s a real man inside trying to get out. He raises his voice. He rants. He falls silent now and then, like he’s listening. I listen, too, but I never hear anyone answer.

“This is what it was for, then. This is your Master Plan. You always have one, don’t you?

“Yeah, right. Not the clay’s place to question the potter. Except
your
feet are made out of the stuff just as much as mine, aren’t they?
Aren’t they?

“You’re not above it, you fucker. You’re no higher than I am. You may be
in
me, but you’re not above me.

“Goddamn you. You monster, you parasite. Goddamn you.”

I don’t know if he’s swearing or praying.

Something’s screaming the next time I come to. It’s still not me; I try, believe me. I can barely manage a gurgle. But
something’s
screaming, and that sound bounces off walls and ceilings and hits me from all sides, tinged with metal.

My hope and my salvation. He’s brought me indoors.

I open my eyes, try to focus, can’t. But the flames are still with us; giant flickering shadows writhe on a wall, and the backlight is orange—except just off to my right, where it’s—wrong, somehow. Artificial. I turn my head just far enough to see the golem playing with a tiny blue sun dancing in his hand.
Laser
, I realize, and pass out again.

“Wake up.”

Not dead yet. Still not dead.

“Wake up
, soldier.
Now.”

Same place, different time. Bright dirty sunlight pools on the floor from barred windows high overhead.

I actually feel a bit better now. The pain’s more—distant. That’s good; it means all those nerves sending back reports from my broken fucked-up body have finally cashed it in. It means that maybe I can die in peace.

“Wake
the fuck UP
!”

Something big and dark and flaccid hangs in front of me. I force my eyes to squint, force my brain to interpret: a skinned carcass, a flayed—

—golem—

Instant focus.

My savior’s been gutted like a fish. It hangs deflated from an overhead beam, split down the middle and scooped clean of its insides. All those high-tech gunmetal muscles dangle limp and unmoving; the interior glistens red as raw meat. Are my eyes fucking up again, or is that butchered carcass
bleeding
?

“Down here.”

Big black dude. Shaved head, some kind of skintight black body stocking pimped out with white veins. Like a wet suit with a circulatory system. Dirt and blood smeared across his face and for one crazy surreal second I think he has
gills
, but no; it’s just a bloody gash, still oozing, along the line of his jaw. I concentrate on his shoulder flash until it stops jumping around:
AIRBORNE
.

He’s got some kind of hypo in one hand. I can feel the tingle, now; he’s just emptied it into my arm.

“Don’t try to talk,” he says. (I almost laugh, but the pain surges back when I try.) “Just let it take hold. You’re gonna make it. You’re gonna make it.”

It sounds like an apology.

He’s not doing so well himself, you know. There’s a trickle of blood threading out of his nose, he’s swaying on his feet, his face is as gray as that wall behind you. One of his eyes is bloodshot, like every capillary ruptured at once. His hands are shaking. His eyes dart around like a bird’s, like there aren’t enough shadows in this place to hold all the monsters he sees—and there are
still
a lot of shadows here, that dirty daylight doesn’t kill the darkness so much as just … throw it into high contrast. He doesn’t seem to be seriously injured, physically—no bones broken that I can see, no major wounds—but it’s obvious he’s way past your garden-variety thousand-yard stare. I’ve seen some pretty horrific shit over the past couple of hours, and I’m looking my own death in the face, and even so I can tell he’s
far
farther into hell than I am.

Something lands on the roof; metal clangs against metal. Airborne glances up at the sound and his face lights up. I mean, literally
lights up;
I could swear that dark skin
brightened
for just a second, but I blink and it’s gone. I hear scuttling sounds, but it’s dark up there; I can’t see anything but the ghostly dim shapes of rafters.

“Don’t worry about that.” He jerks his chin at the ceiling. “That’s the least of your problems.”

More sounds from overhead; a soft gritty patter of displaced dust drizzles down on us. Those rafters look like a rib cage. I flash back to a half-remembered Bible story from the Vision channel, something about gods and whales. I wonder for a moment if some alien monster hasn’t swallowed us whole.

“You are so fucked,” Airborne says, and his voice is—empty. Transparent. As if the man has already gone away, and left some kind of autopilot in charge.

“There’s no time,” it says, and I can see I was wrong; the man hasn’t gone away, not yet. He’s still trapped in those eyes, one red, one white, jerking back and forth in panicked little arcs while the chassis short-circuits around them. But whatever’s running the voice is still online, and it’s got priority now. “It’s up to you now, soldier. I can’t do this anymore.”

Suddenly those red-and-white eyes lock onto mine. They drill into me like restraining bolts, like spikes through my head. I really don’t like what I see in there and I try to look away, but no dice; I just about pass out from the effort. And he’s starting to
glow
again, there’s a kind of
mesh
lighting up his cheeks from inside, like honeycomb. Dude has one of those bioluminescent tattoos, you know, the ones where they inject the glowing bacteria? The more excited you get the more they light up—it’s a blood-flow thing, dissolved oxygen and whatnot—and this dude must be
very
fucking excited because that honeycomb is just about incan
des
cent in his face, man, like those old lightbulbs with the filaments.

But I’m fading again. I can’t hold focus, I can feel myself passing out. I might as well have snowglobes for eyeballs, there’s so many floaters swirling around in there. The whole damn world disappears down a spinning tunnel, into a vortex of static with those wild wild eyes at the center, and that sad dead voice behind them saying
This is the best I can do …

And something
engulfs
me from behind.

It’s like being devoured by an oil slick. Something warm and slippery wraps around my arms and legs and chest and at first it hurts holy
fuck
it hurts, but then the pain recedes and whatever steps up to take its place is
really
nice. Way better than morphine; it takes the edge off the pain but it doesn’t make you the least bit stupid.